Contemporary African art is an expression commonly used to defined the sum of styles and national productions of the African continent, the production of African artists, the production of Africa analyzed as a hole, the artistic, cultural and institutional dynamics of the African continent, the contemporary art so-called African or a contemporary artistic production linked to Africa-"wikipedia"The countries of Africa are well known for indigenous and culturally representative sculptures, textiles, and paintings. In the past, artists, art historians, and collectors have focused primarily on "traditional" African art, consisting of ceremonial masks, wood and ivory statues, and mud-cloth textiles. Today, Contemporary African Art has transformed beyond traditional subject matter and media into an art movement being exhibited, collected and discussed internationally. The styles of Contemporary African Art differ greatly from region to region and are highly affected by Africa's history: colonialism; religion; politics; racism; slavery; war; contact with the West; and the urban experience.
The vastness of classifying Contemporary African Art
For a long time African art, were of more interest to, If I should say anthropologists than to art historians. As artist started to portray art as being tied to specific histories and colonial and postcolonial conditions Avant grade art movements began to take an interest in sculpture from West and Central Africa, which came to the notice of art historians through its influence on their work. What was its appeal? Artists described their perceptions of remarkable formal qualities quite different from those in their own cultural tradition. They read into them the kinds of symbolic meanings they were seeking to express in their own work, promoting the view that Africans could create art, but of a very particular kind. To those struggling against the constraints of the naturalistic artistic tradition of Europe, such African art offered a refreshing and potent vision of the creativity of 'natural man', which scholars had already compared to the work of children or psychotics. This was particularly appealing to those seeking creative inspiration from impulses, which their own culture defined as psychologically deep, intuitive and primitive. For Africa, the issues in this one-sided Western debate with other cultures have moved from the export of Africans as slaves to the conquest of their lands, more recently to the formation of nation states, and now to the promotion of capitalist economies through aid and development programmes.
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An An example of Nka Journal Magazine
To fully ensure this, the need for a dedicated gallery and museum is needed to achieve this. One of such galleries is the Ed Cross fine Art Limited. It is a gallery that specializes in Contemporary African Art. They do not only serve as a gallery but also a speaking voice that introduces and connects art lovers, private collectors, investors, corporations or museums to the work of many of the most distinguished emerging and established artists from the African continent in a responsible and ethical manner. The Museum of contemporary African Diasporan Arts, MoCADA, is an excellent example of sharing contemporary African art to the world. It is the first museum of its kind to be opened in New York. MoCADA's mission is to rediscover valuable African cultural traditions that were lost through colonization and the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade and to foster a dynamic space for the creation of the continuous evolution of culture.
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El Anatsui has become one the most acclaimed sculptors on the international scene. He has been on the international scene for decades, including an appearance in the 1990 Venice Biennale. However it is his monumental bottle-cap curtains in his solo exhibition "Gawu" and the group show "Africa Remix," both of which toured Europe and the US from 2004 to '2007, and then again in the 2007 Venice Biennale that has made him the pre-eminent artist working in Africa today- At least as far as the West is concerned. El Anatsui was born in 1944, the youngest of 32 siblings, in the Ewe town of Anyako, Ghana. People there were occupied with fishing, salt harvesting, and, during the off-season, weaving. It is noted that Anatsui once said, "I'm a product of two different traditions, the Western one, which I acquired in art school, and the African one, which I started acquiring on my own". This is because; the Ghanaian colleges where El Anatsui studied art still followed a British-style curriculum, focusing on Western art techniques and history. "There was no exposure to one's own traditions so he began to do his own research, studying the old African ways at cultural centers and directly from artisans.
El Anatsui at the venice biennale
Bernie searle is a south African artist who explores her own and a broader South African identity by branding her body. sSearle originally was trained as a sculptor, now she utilizes large-scale digital photographic prints and combines them with found materials to make compelling installations. She works with different mediums, such as photography, video, installation and performing art. Searle's works focus primarily on narratives of gender, race and memory as they have been configured in apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa. Like a number of contemporary artists working in lens-based media and digital technology, her works are often autobiographical and challenge the viewer to confront his or her own role as voyeur of the demarcated body. The interesting thing about searles work is that even though they confront issues of apartheid, something that is very personal to south Africans, they found admirations in the west greatly. When she came to Cornell in 2010 to give a talk on her artistic carrier, I asked her that "My concern was that I believed people who experienced the harsh treatment of apartheid do not want to remember them or have them re-iterated in anyway as it was only going to incur more pain and hurt, so how do they people feel about her re-enactment of the whole thing." She said that people were scared to talk about and that she was putting her life at risk doing what she is doing because it was necessary to have these issues brought out for a peaceful reconciliation program. I believe that the west is embracing it peacefully because it is an issue related to humanity and maybe they find it as a way of mending the hurt they incurred during the process.
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Yinka Shonibare to me is one interesting artist, as with his double identity as a British-Nigerian, his works tends to focus on those two cultures. He works across diverse artistic media to explore ideas about African contemporary identity and the legacy of European colonialism in the present. His works strives to open up debate about the social, cultural and political issues that shape our histories and construct identity. They rend challenge assumptions about representation. In a video interview with him, when asked why his sculptures are headless, he said it is to conceal the issue of race and identity, and to express the idea of oneness, in so doing people realize their mistakes so as not to repeat it again. He is know for his headless sculptures cloth in African batiks. I think that it is a way blurring the boundaries between stereotypically Western ideas about 'high' art and traditional categorizations of 'African art.
Yinka Shonibare's Scramble for Africa
When I was first introduced to works of William kentridge, I did not for once perceive him to be an African artist because of the medium of his work. He is mostly known for his video and animation works, something very new to Africans and he is able to do a very good job merging the two. He is a South African artist best known for his prints, drawings, and animated films. His works although have very much western form of production, they depict everyday life under apartheid. In exploring this field, he broadens his themes leaving the audience to examine other political conflicts. He takes on a different approach when addressing political issues such that he ends up having his works create contradictory aggressiveness which entangles perpetrators, witness and victims involved. As he has progressed, he has developed a new conceptual theme where even though he is still using the animation medium, he has introduced his body, where he uses his body "himself" as the main character. Kentridge goes beyond the usual manipulations of animation to bring forth a world conceived as a theatre of memory.
Kentridge drawing in his studio, Johannesburg -a link to his animation "Automatic Writing" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmvK7A84dlk
Ibrahim el Salahi is a Sudanese whose works fueling modernism has fused the diverse traditions of Sudan to make an art that is universal in its importance. Interesting enough amongst the entire internationally acclaimed artist, it is only Salahi who has served time in prison by his countries government and has had to go into exile. His most famous work, which is temporarily housed in the Johnson museum in Cornell, is called the inevitable. It is said that it is his reaction to his time spent in prison. These nine panels of artwork are Africa's, "Guernica", a testimony of war and revolution, which raises the global consciousness about the imminent threat of dictatorship and civil unrest. It makes frequent trips abroad but the one place it never goes is the Sudan. Ibrahim has always maintained that the Sudanese people should own the 9-panelled Masterpiece, yet he refuses to allow the painting to travel to the Sudan until the country enjoys, public liberties and democratic institution. "The Inevitable", challenges the notion of warfare and depicts the chaotic, exposing the brutal acts of destruction and genocide. It is popularly believed that never before has an African artist made such a social statement, which has echoed the sentiments of an entire Nation and is as relevant today as it was in when it was made in 1985
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